Ken Fortie, RivertonMember Since February 2008Artist Statement When most kids get their first camera they start taking pictures of themselves with friends doing crazy things. My first roll of film has images of sunsets through icicles hanging from a church roof, ice covered streams under a canopy of snow laden branches and the orange glow of a sunset reflecting off an old mill. My desire to capture images of a beautiful world has been with me my entire life. Many times in our travels, my family has waited patently because I happened to see the perfect picture just off the road or just off the trail and I had to make my way through tangled branches or up steep embankments to capture that short-lived moment when the perfect lighting settled momentarily on a beautiful scene. A few shots and the magic is gone, a two dimensional image in my camera is all that’s left of that magical moment. Not only do I like to capture images of the world as I see it, I like to create new and unusual images by taking pictures of lights in the city and manipulating them to create a colorful, flowing picture that causes one to pause momentarily during a busy day to meditate on the incredible shapes and colors that are all around us if we will but perceive.